For Scott Pruitt’s EPA, Climate-Change Denial Is Mission Critical

The EPA chief is very wrong about Harvey.

August 30, 2017

The human tragedy resulting from Hurricane Harvey is also an environmental crisis—and the Environmental Protection Agency, even as it has been disrupted and diminished by the Trump administration, is playing a crucial role in responding to the flooding that has created dramatic new perils for Texans.

Unfortunately, the charlatan who heads the EPA, Scott Pruitt, is spinning discussions about that response to make them fit within the narrow confines of his climate-science denial. As America’s fourth-largest city was under water this week, and as reports mounted regarding environmental threats unleashed by the storms and the unprecedented flooding of industrial and refinery zones, Pruitt’s EPA went so far as to criticize media outlets and scientists who dared to suggest that there are explanations for the epic rainfall, storm surges, and flooding associated with Harvey to be found in climate science.

Pruitt is actually claiming that attempts to explain why the crisis in Texas is so severe are “misplaced,” and to suggest that media outlets ask for these explanations for “opportunistic”—as opposed to journalistic—reasons.

“I think at this point to look at things like this and talk about a cause and effect isn’t really helping the people of Texas right now,” he toldBreitbart News Daily. “I think for opportunistic media to use this without basis or support to simply engage in a cause-and-effect type of discussion and not focus on the needs of people, I think is misplaced.”

Pruitt is wrong. The discussion is not “misplaced.” It is timely, and necessary.

Talk about the ways in which climate change influences extreme weather events and increases the risk of damage and loss of life is not controversial in the scientific community. Though scientists continue to study the nature and extent of that influence, they discuss it as a reality. Climate change “exacerbated several characteristics of the storm in a way that greatly increased the risk of damage and loss of life,” explains Michael E Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. “Climate change worsened the impact of Hurricane Harvey.”

“There is universal agreement” that global warming boosts rainfall during hurricanes and heightens the risk of severe flooding, Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric-science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Reuters this week. “If you look at long-term effects of hurricanes on society, the impacts are more about water than wind. Harvey is an example of how vulnerable modern society is to rainstorms as the climate warms. It’s solid physics.”

Unfortunately, Pruitt is not a scientist. He is a career politician with close ties to the fossil-fuel industry—and to the climate-change-denial projects that have been developed by right-wing campaign donors and lobbyists to protect the profiteers. As the scandal-plagued attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt faced constant criticism for using his position not just to battle against the EPA but to battle against science itself.

Now, as head of the agency he spent years suing in the courts and attacking on the airwaves, Pruitt is continuing his war on science from the inside. As The New York Times noted just months into Pruitt’s tenure—in an article headlined “Counseled by Industry, Not Staff, E.P.A. Chief Is Off to a Blazing Start”—“Scott Pruitt has moved to undo, delay or otherwise block more than 30 environmental rules, a regulatory rollback larger in scope than any other over so short a time in the agency’s 47-year history, according to experts in environmental law.”

Pruitt has been especially aggressive on climate-change issues, working with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and others in the administration to reverse progress made during the presidency of Barack Obama. The new EPA head refuses to acknowledge the most basic conclusions of climate science and has recruited researchers to try to discredit scientific evidence he disagrees with.

Just days after taking office, Pruitt began the process of undoing Obama’s “Clean Power Plan” initiative. When Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, it was Pruitt who was the most enthusiastic proponent for exiting, griping, “We owe no apologies to other nations for our environmental stewardship.” Jeremy Symons, the associate vice president of climate political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund, toldRolling Stone that Pruitt “wanted all his pals in the fossil-fuel industry to know, ‘Hey, I did this for you. I got this done. I’m the man.’ This was Scott Pruitt’s victory lap.”

But Pruitt did not stop with that dubious “victory,” however. He has remained so ardently at odds with science that he has created a new EPA ethic that includes attacking scientists merely for speaking up on climate-change issues.

It happened again this week, when the agency should have been fully focused on the Texas flooding and the immediate and long-term environmental challenges that extend from it. Reuters reported Tuesday that, in response to a question about concerns raised by climate scientists, EPA spokesperson Liz Bowman announced: “EPA is focused on the safety of those affected by Hurricane Harvey and providing emergency response support—not engaging in attempts to politicize an ongoing tragedy.”

That statement summed up the Orwellian turn the EPA has taken under the leadership of a politician who is more concerned about his ideological obsessions than threats to the planet.

Scientists who discuss solid physics and universally accepted concepts with regard to climate change are not politicizing the agonizing moment in which Texans find themselves. They are offering explanations, and useful cues for how to respond to an era of “super storms.” And they have been doing so in a reasoned, nuanced manner that does not casually blame hurricanes and tropical storms on climate change but that instead points to evidence that hurricanes and tropical storms are becoming more severe because of global warming.

The scientists are dealing in facts, and logic.

They are not “politicizing” the debate.

The debate has been politicized by corporate interests that seek to deny reality—and by an EPA administrator who is so beholden to those interests that he is turning an essential federal agency into an increasingly absurd and dangerous reflection of his jaundiced worldview.

Rather than just attacking ‘deniers’ like Scott Pruitt with the science, I think we should also develop, debate, and create the political solutions necessary to address climate change.
If President Trump were suddenly struck with an intense stomach pain, he would demand to be taken to a hospital. Trump knows, as does Pruitt, the deniers, and everyone else, that only science can determine what is wrong with him, science will relieve the pain, and science will offer a solution. If science determines he has an infected appendix and it needs to be removed, Trump will follow their advice and he will thank the men and women of science when he is up on his feet again.
We need to fight politically, because most elites have consciously chosen climate change denial as a tactic to thwart science and political change in order to preserve their wealth and power.
Consider for example, that most of the pollution in cities comes from buildings. Homes and offices are heated, meals cooked, hot water, and summer a/c depends on fossil fuel or electricity produced by fossil fuel.
Converting each and every building away from fossil fuels, making them more efficient, and capable of using more electricity, plus producing more electricity without fossil fuels will be a project that will take decades, and it will be necessary to accept a massive amount of organization, planning, and cooperation that can only be done by the government – which is the primary reason elites are climate deniers.
Moreover, it will require a prominent role, at the highest levels, for science and related professions as we reorganize transportation, homes, work, our lives and how we live, or grow our food. Science, however, will not provide the political ideas that facilitate this transition to sustainable energy, only democratic debate can do that.
Should we consider a tax increase of say $1 per year, every year, over a ten year period for gas and heating oil, leveling off at $10. Thus, at ten years gas will be rather expensive. The fuel tax is meant to convince people that there is a cost and we need incentives to move away from fossil fuel. However, we need to give people time to adjust, inform themselves about alternatives, and plan. A Tobin tax can also assist in the transition.
Should homes and buildings have an energy rating system, say from one to ten, which informs buyers, affects price, and rewards efficiency. Low interest government loans, regulation on new construction, incentives on buying the most efficient cars and trucks? When a building is sold at a profit should a progressive fee be assessed on the buyer and/or seller for installing solar panels?
I don’t mean to suggest this is a plan, but rather than merely push the science, which scientist are capable of doing themselves, we need to debate ideas which best prepare everyone for the political and practical changes that are needed. Without that debate the entire process will be either blocked by the “denying powers that be" or co-opted to serve the interests of finance and industry.
It might take nothing less than democratically achieving political power and implementing the necessary changes.

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Heath Wattssays:

August 31, 2017 at 3:06 pm

Why is a lawyer heading our EPA? With my PhD in geochemistry, I'm much more qualified to do the job than Pruitt is, but I'm not qualified enough. We need top scientists heading the EPA and DOE and Trump gives us dummy Pruitt and dumber Perry. How are these two idiots making America great?

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David Gurariesays:

August 30, 2017 at 11:19 pm

With all their destructive power tropical cyclones do some good to our political life. Back in 2005 Katrina brought infamy to GW, then Sandy put to rest Romney's bid. Let's hope Harvey will help drive the coffin nail into the Trump swamp.

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Alicia Petersonsays:

August 30, 2017 at 8:27 pm

Opportunistic is not necessarily bad. The literal ocean will recede in Texas but I suppose we should just ignore the fact that New Orleans will NEVER recover and that this exact scenario has been predicted and go back to business as usual: https://projects.propublica.org/houston-cypress/

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Walter Pewensays:

August 30, 2017 at 7:36 pm

What the hell is this horrible person doing speaking to BREITBART? That says it all. He is a nightmare and I'm not sure the majority of the country is aware enough of the fact. Everyone has their number one ones to hate of Trumps satanic angels, for me it's been him and DeVos hands down from the start.
Yes, they are all equally nightmarish, but Pruitt shares DeVos quality of semi-invisibility, as much as that is possible her. He immediately over saw the 30% cut at the EPA. MOST Americans went "oh well". Same with DeVos, smiley face Junior League billionaire could have proposed bringing corporal punishment in on the sly and moronic Americans simply wouldn't know. Death is NOT too strong a wish for Pruitt-He is a murderer like the majority of the people Trump chooses. That's correct, a murderer. He does it on purpose.